Animation Rules.

Saturday-morning television had been devoted to children's programming almost since the introduction of the medium, but the nature of the programming changed gradually over the decades. By the 1970s Saturday-morning television was virtually dominated by animated shows, many of them revivals of older features such as the Warner Bros. cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and other characters. One of the most popular new characters, the Pink Panther (premiered 1969), was created by Blake Edwards and featured music by Henry Mancini.

Cartoon Relevance.

PBS's Sesame Street proved that education and entertainment were compatible in children's television. On the commercial networks some producers attempted to follow suit with socially conscious cartoons. In 1973, for instance, ABC introduced School-house Rock, a series of animated shorts on grammar, mathematics, and history. One of the most successful efforts was CBS's Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, introduced in...